Talk:Anchoring effect

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Economics Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Economics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Economics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EconomicsWikipedia:WikiProject EconomicsTemplate:WikiProject EconomicsEconomics articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Psychology Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Psychology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PsychologyWikipedia:WikiProject PsychologyTemplate:WikiProject Psychologypsychology articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Philosophy: Logic Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Associated task forces: /  Logic

On 9 September 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved from Anchoring (cognitive bias) to Anchoring effect. The result of the discussion was moved.

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2019 and 10 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Pcprice28.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the article itself is not really about the contemporary meaning of anchoring in NLP, like explained, for example, here: http://www.deep-trance.com/skill-model/anchoring.html. Unfortunately, I lack the necessary English skills to edit it properly, so if you're reading this, please cover the modern meaning. Thanks in advance.

The kind of anchoring you (and the given url) are refering to is of a completely different type and meaning. 'Anchoring', within a cognitive psychology paradigm, refers to a specific type of cognitive bias and in no way has anything to do with NLP/deep trance meditation, etc. If you or anyone else is interested in the meaning of "anchoring" supplied in the url you listed, please make a seperate entry, i.e. an entry that does not place it (directly or indirectly) within the context of cognitive psychology proper.

Both meanings have to do with the functioning of the human mind. They could reasonably be presented in the same article, which would begin with something like "Anchoring is a term used in different senses in cognitive psychology and in neuro-linguistic programming." Then there could be a heading for each meaning. If we develop a huge amount of additional material on either or both, we could make Anchoring a disambiguation page, but we're pretty far from that stage right now.

I'd like to know more about the NLP sense. I hope that someone knowledgeable about NLP will write something. Even a sentence would be useful, though of course a couple of paragraphs would be even better. JamesMLane 07:51, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A new article Anchor (NLP) has been set up for the NLP meaning of the term FT2 18:35, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The article claims "... intuitively assess probabilities" and then gives two examples: In the first example people have to assess a percentage and in the second an amount of money. So anchoring obviously does not just affect assessing probabilities. 78.50.93.43 (talk) 19:39, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reading this entry, and specifically focusing on the examples given, it makes it seem as if anchoring is always a conscious thought. In reality, often our judgements and decisions are based on anchoring heuristics and as individuals we are completely unaware of it. I think the unconscious nature of anchoring, is worth mentioning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hollidaa (talk • contribs) 03:23, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm an undergraduate Psychology student, and I'd like to revise this page as part of my Social Psychology class. Though this article has some good sources, I think it ultimately misses the point of Anchoring. Anchoring is, first and foremost (if you'll pardon the pun), an order effect. An anchor is set specifically by the first thing mentioned, whatever that may be, and much of the article (the "Background" section in particular) misses this idea. Additionally, there are better, clearer examples that could be used throughout this article. I have some sources lined up, and I'll put them in as I make revisions.

--JTycherin (talk) 22:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article contradicts itself. First paragraph "Anchoring or focalism is a cognitive bias that describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the *first* piece of information offered (the "anchor") when making decisions". In the part about the focusing effect "People focus on *notable differences*, excluding those that are less conspicuous". So it is either the first piece of info (anchoring) or the most notable difference (focusing), but the two are clearly different things. I think the problem is that the focusing effect really does not belong here.

193.225.200.93 (talk) 10:11, 19 November 2014 (UTC)Andrea Canidio[reply]

The cited reference for "Clearly neither of these anchors can be correct, but the two groups still guessed significantly differently (average age of 50 vs. average age of 67).", Explaining the enigmatic anchoring effect: Mechanisms of selective accessibility. By: Strack, Fritz, Mussweiler, Thomas, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 00223514, 19970901, Vol. 73, Issue 3, does not appear to substantiate the claim of "(average age of 50 vs. average age of 67)" - I may be missing something, but I don't see it. 143.197.222.231 (talk) 16:29, 11 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just found it! It is in an appendix not shown in the online view, but in the PDF. 143.197.222.231 (talk) 16:36, 11 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Booth has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

I think is fine apart from the typo in column 1 p1 2nd last para, where in the context ‘overweighed’ should be replaced by ‘overweighted’

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Booth has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:

• Reference : Alison L. Booth & Lina Cardona-Sosa & Patrick Nolen, 2013. "Do Single?Sex Classes Affect Achievement? A Study in a Coeducational University," BORRADORES DE ECONOMIA 010989, BANCO DE LA REPUBLICA.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 12:59, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think this article needs an extensive revision, which I am hoping to undertake soon. The main problem is that it equates anchoring with a number of other phenomena that, although related at some level, are not the same. Anchoring usually refers to a phenomenon where the presentation of an arbitrary number (an "anchor") affects some quantitative judgment, such that there is a positive correlation between the anchor and the judgment. This is the essence of the definitions given in the review articles by Chapman and Johnson and by Furnam and Boo. The current article, however, lumps anchoring together with several other phenomena, including focalism and the focusing illusion, assimilation and contrast effects, and primacy effects. What these phenomena all have in common is that one piece of information has a disproportionate impact on some judgment, which is fine. But it is inconsistent with the usage of "anchoring" in the contemporary research literature. What I am proposing is 1) presenting a more precise definition in the opening section, 2) removing the focusing illusion section, 3) adding something about traditional anchoring versus what has been called "basic anchoring"^[1], and 4) cutting down the negotiations section (which seems disproportionately long). The section on influencing factors also seems to rely heavily on individual empirical studies that are not necessarily very reliable. It would be better to base this section on more extensive reviews if they exist. Feedback on these ideas would be much appreciated. Pcprice28 (talk) 21:49, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Expertise is when a judge has relevant knowledge. In a study using price estimation of cars, it was found that relevant knowledge positively influenced anchoring."

The last 5 words are ambiguous. What does "positively influenced" mean? Increased (a positive amount), or decreased (less tendency to make the error)?

"Expertise in cognitive bias is related to experience however the two are not exclusively exhaustive."

What does "exclusively exhaustive" mean? If bias is related to experience, they overlap, so they're not mutually exclusive. But "however" is wrong, unless by "exclusively exhaustive" you mean something else. There's a term "collectively exhaustive", covering all possibilities. But if this is about experience, then anything and experience are collectively exhaustive, but you say "not..."

"In a study using stock return estimates, it was found that expertise decreases behavioural bias significantly. It was found that other factors like cognitive ability and experience where there is no susceptibility to anchoring or a susceptibility as it increases," What is the last "it"? Is that also anchoring? When there's none or a lot?

"tend to become factors that decrease the effects of anchoring when they are an expert." Who is "they"?

Why not just: It was found that other factors like cognitive ability and experience decrease the effects of anchoring." Or It was found that other factors like cognitive ability and experience decrease the effects of anchoring for experts." Randyastr (talk) 00:40, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Many many more paragraphs in the article need work. Take this as an example:

Anchoring in pricing

According to the theory, consumers’ shopping experiences are influenced by factors such as time restriction and specific environment. Enterprises design would set anchor values for consumers in order to get them to buy the products. When persuading consumers to purchase a particular product, sellers might use anchoring.

1. According to the "what" theory?

2. The two listed factors make no sense to be the only (or main) factors described to influence shopping experience. I mean, really, time restriction and "specific environment" are the only factors that influence shopping experience? Price, service, quality of goods/services received, etc. etc. etc. don't have an impact worth mentioning? It just seems oddly specific and oddly out of place.

3. "Enterprises design would set" makes no sense grammatically. The whole sentence just reads like it's a nothing-statement. The last sentence is also absolutely useless. Overall, the whole paragraph does not say anything about what anchoring does in pricing, or how and why it is used.

And I could go on and on, pretty much half the article reads like an 8th grader's Econ 101 essay that he plagiarised from some obscure forum discussion. Also, English is this hypothetical 8th grader's third language. 78.58.223.82 (talk) 19:27, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really surprised to see "cognitive bias" in the title of this article, because anchoring is discussed in many academic publications and I don't think I've ever seen them define or describe it as a cognitive bias. Anchoring-and-adjustment is a heuristic which can result in biases towards an irrelevant number (a contaminant) in some kinds of judgement. To say that anchoring is the bias is to confuse the cause and effect, and not how these things are written about in the sources.

• In the Gilovich, Griffin, Kahneman edited volume "Heuristics and Biases: the Psychology of Intuitive Judgement", the entry in the index is for "anchoring and adjustment heuristic". In the chapter of that book "Incorporating the Irrelevant: Anchors in Judgements of Belief and Value" it says "'Anchoring and Adjustment' is one of three well-known heuristics described by Tversky and Kahneman (1974)". (p 120). The chapter goes on to distinguish three senses of "anchoring": the experimental step of "anchoring" someone on a particular number, the experimental result that quantitative judgements are influenced by irrelevant numbers, and psychological process of anchoring and adjustment.
• Johnathan Baron in "Thinking and Deciding" (Second edition, p 235) says "The anchoring and adjustment heuristic affects quantitative estimates of all sorts."
• Scott Plous' "The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making" (1993) has a chapter on Anchoring and Adjustment, calling it a "phenomenon" or an "effect" but neither calling it a cognitive bias nor a heuristic.
• "Cognitive illusions", a textbook edited by Rudiger Pohl (2004) has a chapter on what it calls the "Anchoring effect". It uses the phrase "anchoring effects" repeatedly and mentions "one judgemental heuristic called 'anchoring'" as one of the possible explanations. It doesn't describe anchoring as a cognitive bias.
• David Hardman's "Judgment and Decision Making" (2009) is a textbook with a section on Anchoring-and-Adjustment, calling it the Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic, not a cognitive bias. (p 32)
• Sutherland in "Irrationality" (2007) talks about "anchoring effects" (p 168) and doesn't call it a heuristic or a bias.

MartinPoulter (talk) 16:13, 8 September 2023 (UTC) More references:[reply]

• Garnham & Oakhill "Thinking and Reasoning" (1994) has "The third, and least well documented of Kahneman and Tversky's heuristics is anchoring and adjustment." (p 163).
• Kahneman in "Thinking Fast and Slow" (2011) has "The phenomenon we were studying is so common and so important in the everyday world that you should know its name: it is an anchoring effect." (p 119). He then discusses explanations for the effect, including the heuristic.
• The original Tversky and Kahneman paper in Science has "[D]ifferent starting points yield different estimates, which are biased toward the initial values. We call this phenomenon anchoring." but note it still doesn't call it a cognitive bias.
• The justification for calling anchoring a cognitive bias is this peer reviewed paper which says "Examples of cognitive bias include the anchoring effect [...], the availability heuristic [...], the framing effect..." The researchers are at the Oxford Internet Institute; they're not psychologists, and that is maybe why their explanation mixes up heuristics and biases in a way that the psychological literature is careful enough not to do. This one, slightly garbled explanation from a non-psychology paper isn't so important that we should prioritise it over the many books and papers that are in fact the main academic sources for the topic. MartinPoulter (talk) 07:47, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In regard to 'easy to demonstrate, but hard to explain', linking in Ovid's quote would be a nice touch:

"The cause is hidden; the effect is visible to all." -- Ovid Kontribuanto (talk) 14:54, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]